We’re running a campaign about the basics of workplace law.

On this page:

• What are the ‘basics’?
• What we’re doing
• How to prepare
• Sign up for free, tailored information
• More info

When assisting employers and employees, we often see the same common issues and misunderstandings arise. So we’re running this campaign to increase awareness of the fundamentals and to show employers the information and tools we have to help you get these basics right from the beginning.

As workplace basics apply to all employers, so will this campaign – we’ll be randomly selecting businesses across a range of different industries as part of the campaign.

What are the ‘basics’?

Pay

Pay is one of the most common areas where we find mistakes are made.

An employee’s pay rate comes from an award or agreement, or from the national minimum wage (if no award or agreement applies). An award or agreement will also state if any penalty rates or overtime rates apply, and when.

Record-keeping and pay slips

Maintaining proper records is an important and mandatory part of running a business. So is giving employees correct pay slips. This is also an area where we find that employers consistently get it wrong. Failing to maintain proper records or issue pay slips can result in penalties such as fines.

What we’re doing

We’ll be contacting randomly selected businesses across a number of industries to check their records and help them fix any issues that we find, focusing on these basics of workplace law.

We’ll give employers advice, resources and tools to help you understand and comply with workplace laws. All of these are available for free on our website.

How to prepare

You can make sure you’re prepared and ready for the campaign by checking that you’re complying with workplace laws. You can use the resources and information available on our website to easily check your records and fix any issues.

You can:

• use our Pay and Conditions Tool to easily calculate base pay rates, allowances and penalty rates (including overtime)
• check pay slip and record-keeping requirements and using our templates to help get it right
• take an Online Learning Centre course on record-keeping and pay slips, having difficult conversations with your staff, hiring new employees and more
• test your workplace knowledge with our Workplace basics quiz 
• read more about the recent changes that took effect as part of the protecting vulnerable workers reform.

Sign up for free, tailored information

Keep up to date by registering for My account - you’ll get personalised workplace law information and email updates about significant changes that affect you. You’ll also be able to:

• ask for our help
• save results from our Pay, Shift, Leave and Notice and Redundancy Calculators
• save your favourite pages, including award summaries from Find my award.

You can also follow us on Facebook  for regular updates and information about workplace law.

More info

For more information on this campaign please contact campaigns@fwo.gov.au.